Vector Girl
by Laziness Incarnate
Summary: [FFVI] AU. What if Celes were never recruited by the Imperial Army and grew up in Vector as a (mostly) ordinary citizen?


**Vector Girl**

When Celes is five, she cups her hands over her mouth and whispers _Cure_ because it's a secret.

She's in the room she shares with her big sister Clarisse, who isn't home right now, so it's safe. If Clarisse catches Celes casting magic she'll lock her in their room and not let her out for days, and Mama won't stop her.

If that happens, Celes won't be let out until the chamber pot stink turns unbearable and she's hungry enough to hunt for dirty Vector mice in the corners of the room.

"I don't want to do this to you. You brought it on yourself," Clarisse will tell her as she locks the door.

Celes casts _Cure_ all the same.

-

When Celes is six, she's tall enough to see the photo on the mantle.

The frame is metal, a relic from wealthier times. The man in the photo is too tall and a bit thin, but he looks dashing in his Imperial uniform. He has light hair, clear eyes, and a long nose. Just like Celes.

She's known about the photo for a long time, but she's never seen it for herself until now. She's seen Clarisse stop in the middle of doing the washing to glance at it all casual-like, but with a strange look in her eyes. She's also seen Mama takes it down to stroke its surface, her stained hands almost beautiful again, while Celes watches and wishes her mother could love her half so much as that picture.

"He's still alive," Mama says fiercely, when she catches Celes watching her one day. "No thanks to you."

-

When Celes is seven, she learns why.

"You want to know how come Mother can't stand to look at you?" Clarisse's voice is weary. "You sure you want to know?"

Her sister's eyes are saying: _Today I'm hurt enough that you'll get the truth out of me. You've finally won this war of attrition, Celes. Congratulations._

So Celes nods. She doesn't waste her victories.

"When you were two years old," Clarisse begins, "these soldiers came and tested you - they were going around and doing it to almost all the babies in the Lower Quarters, I think. I was just a dumb brat but I still remember it. They injected you with something and…you glowed like a goddamn streetlamp. The soldiers got all excited. They wanted to take you to the Magitek labs. Wanted to turn you into one of their freaks."

_They gave me _Cure, she thought. Aloud, she said, "But…why didn't I get taken? The government said that Papa and Mama could keep me, if we paid money?"

"No, stupid, there's no way the Empire'd let you go if they knew about you. Father bribed the soldiers to keep their mouths shut. It took practically every gil we had"

"So...that's why Father had to go away to and become a soldier."

"Yeah, that's why. That's why we're poor as dirt, why he's...and that's why Mother hates you. And you don't even remember why. You don't even remember him."

"Oh."

"You're lucky, not remembering. You...you're so stupid, you know. You look exactly like him."

Clarisse turns her head away, eyes closed, face screwed up so tight it looks painful.

In the kitchen, Mama is sobbing. Celes can hear it. She knows if she goes in there her mother will be holding a letter in her chemical-stained hands. She'll be pressing it to her chest and making the same kind of face Clarisse is making, but worse. The letter arrived earlier today. When Mama saw the Imperial seal she couldn't open it. Clarisse opened it for her. And then Clarisse read the letter aloud, until she couldn't read anymore, and they both started crying.

-

Celes is eight when she learns what kind of person she might have been if her father would have let her.

She's at school when she hears it.

"My Magitek knights," General Leo says on the radio, in one of his rare public relations talks, as Clarisse calls them, "are not only trained in the use of both magic and sword skills, but also in the highest protocols of wartime morality and ethics. They are true knights; that is why they are honoured with command positions."

She doesn't really understand all the words, but she hears the voice that says them, so grand and grave and deep, like a man's voice should be, and she thinks: _Why couldn't I have been one of his?_

"What is your definition of a true knight, General?" asks the interviewer.

The answer comes promptly. "A true knight is one who sees the possibility of courage in others, not only in himself. Thus, a true knight does not mourn his soldiers as they go into battle, for he knows their worth. He trusts in their courage, as they trust in his commands...as they trust in the wisdom of their Emperor. And this belief is a greater force than any magic or weapon at our disposal."

_Ah_, she thinks, pressing her fingers against her palm, where the magic tingles with an almost painful pressure. _Father, why couldn't you be my true knight?_

-

Celes is nine, and Mother can't leave her room anymore.

When Celes goes in there to change the bed pan, she sees Mother's hands are so purple they're almost black. The same colour as her blood, oozing out of the sores on her armpits and legs. Celes has to change the bedsheets a lot.

Mother can't work, of course. So the money is almost gone, and they've been eating nothing but turnips and potatoes for a month now

"Don't worry about it," Clarisse says. "I'll take care of us."

"How? You gonna make money come out your ears?" Celes' stomach is rumbling and it makes her sharp. "Let me quit school for a while. Let me work. Let me make money." _Trust in me, just a little._

But Clarisse has a distracted look on her face. "Don't be as stupid as you look. Someone has to look after Mother. Anyway, I said I'll take care of us."

A few weeks later, there's suddenly enough money for bread and green vegetables and even schoolbooks again, Celes doesn't know how. Going to school again is nothing to be happy about, but the food is welcome. So she doesn't worry about where the money is coming from.

And when Clarisse goes out at night, almost every night, Celes huddles in their room and cuts her foot and practices _Cure _until the magic feels like it's all burned out of her.

It's better than a mother's caress, better than a father's smile. Better than a sister's trust. She knows her magic will never disappear. Things you've bought don't disappear so easily, and her family paid that price long ago.

-

When Celes is ten, her mother dies.

The last thing her mother does is look out of her glassy, far-seeing eyes, right through Celes' face, or maybe right at Celes' face, it's hard to say.

"Gareth?" she says.

Clarisse is crying, just like how she cried when father died. But Celes is just surprised to learn her father's name.

"Gareth, you fool." Mother's voice is raspy but still forceful, somehow. "You should have let them take the baby."

And then she closes her eyes, and stops talking.

They take her body to the river on the eastern edge of Vector, where there's so much Magitek factory runoff you can actually see it. Their mother floats into the bright magic blue, and they watch it eat her up.

-

When Celes is eleven, she figures out her sister is a prostitute.

"You didn't know?" the girls at school mock her. "My brother says she's one of the cheapest whores this side of the city."

Celes didn't know.

When she gets home, Clarisse doesn't even try to deny it. In fact, she almost looks relieved.

"It beats working in the factories," she says, off-hand-like. "I'd rather not be covered in dye or tanning chemicals. Or in Magitek shit. That's the only kind of 'honest' work Mother and I could ever get before."

Celes runs the fingers of her left hand over the fingers of her right. There's a cut she healed there last night, while Clarisse was out working. Her hands are white and soft. Mother's hands were grey-blue, then purple, then black, at the end.

"How much did Mother used to get paid?" Celes asks.

"Thirty gil a day. I get three times that much."

Celes looks up in surprise. Clarisse isn't looking at her.

"Yeah, it pays for your shitty government schooling."

"Why do you still make me go? You could get a more...normal job if I didn't go."

Clarisse glares. "School makes you respectable. So don't spit on the money I'm spending on it. You might have a chance to pull yourself out of the gutter because I'm doing this. Father might not have died for nothing because I'm doing this."

Years later, Celes will understand that her sister is trying to tell her something important with these words, but at that moment all she feels is the enormous weight of her debts. For a moment she hates them all - her sister, her mother, her dead fool of a father in his Imperial uniform, still sitting on the mantle in his metal frame. Why'd he pay to keep her, a useless newborn baby? Why did he have to make them poor, why'd he take away any chance they had for a better life?

"If father hadn't done that I could've been a Magitek knight," Celes mumbles.

Clarisse raises her hand as if to slap her, then lowers it. Instead she just says, in a low voice, "Don't talk about him like that."

"Why shouldn't I?" Celes snaps back. "I never even knew him. I never asked him to do that!"

"He gave you everything! Don't you dare - don't you dare - you ungrateful child!"

"He gave away all our money!" Celes cries, tired of the charade. She can never love this man she's never known, the one who wears her face above a crisp Imperial uniform. "He left us with nothing. He made you become a whore!"

"I don't care about that."

"I do! I don't want to - "

"I'll find you something better than my job then! Better than Mother's job too," Clarisse says, voice suddenly tired. "Something like the life you should have had. So shut up about Father."

_A life filled with glory, and magic_, Celes thinks, but she knows that's not what her sister means. Clarisse still remembers when Mother could buy a metal picture frame and pay to have a picture taken. Clarisse has never dreamed of anything more. She has never felt _Cure_ flowing from her fingertips.

"How are you going to do that?" Celes wonders. And for the first time it occurs to her to ask, "What about you? Your life?"

Clarisse waves a hand and looks away. "Don't worry about it."

-

When she's twelve, Celes swallows her pride and asks to join the brothel where Clarisse works.

"You think I worked all these years so you could end up like me? All those years of school, how could you still be so stupid?"

"You were twelve when you started," Celes returns, cheeks hot with shame. "You didn't even start in a nice brothel, you were on the streets."

"I did it for you," Clarisse glares. "I did it so you could keep your hands clean."

"Clean to do what? There's no clean work, there's nothing clean about this city. You've said so yourself."

"There's ways to get money other than work. The ladies in the Upper Quarters don't have to work at all. You could be like them."

"Huh?" Celes laughs incredulously. "That's rich. Do you think, what, you think some rich man is going to come along and marry me? Because I'm a virgin and I know how to read and write? You think that?"

Clarisse's eyes widen.

"You don't mean that...that's your actual plan? And you call me stupid?"

"It's not stupid. I already found someone who wants you."

"What?"

Her sister isn't looking at her. "There's a man who will take care of you when you're a little older, if you can just keep your skirts on until then. The moment he saw your picture he wanted you. He says he'll put you up in his house in the country."

Celes goes cold, the way she does sometimes, at those words.

"You were showing my picture to people? When did you even take a picture of me?"

"I...when you were sleeping. I borrowed a camera from work."

"You've been showing me around like...like livestock. You want to give me away to a stranger. You want to sell me."

"You don't understand," Clarisse says, sounding desperate now.

"I understand perfectly. You don't want to let me sell my body. You just want to sell all of me."

"He's a respectable man."

"Is he one of your clients at the brothel?"

Clarisse nods.

"Then how is it any different from being a whore? Actually it's worse, because he'll take me away from you."

"But you won't even have to look for clients, you'll hardly have to work," Clarisse tells her. There's something frightened in the blue of her eyes. "He saw your picture and said he wanted you right away. He says you'll live in his beautiful country home, you'll practically be a lady. You'll have servants waiting on you! How can you not want that?"

"I don't want to leave you," Celes whispers.

Clarisse's expression doesn't change, but she takes her sister's hands in her own, stroking the soft white skin almost tenderly.

"Don't you get it? This is the only way to escape."

"I..." Celes shakes her head. "I can't believe you'd do this to me. After Father gave away all our money so I wouldn't be sold to the army, and you want to sell me again."

Her sister goes silent at that.

They don't speak about it again. But it's clear Clarisse hasn't changed her mind, because she's still working at the brothel, and Celes isn't allowed anywhere near it.

-

When she's thirteen, Celes buys a Magitek infusion on the black market.

To save up the money, she starts eating less. Clarisse is so busy with clients nowadays she doesn't even notice. If Celes feels guilty using her sister's whoring money for this, she reminds herself that in a year's time there's a house waiting for her, a cage, and she's just a pretty bird without any power over her own future.

It's worse than she imagines, going hungry. She remembers when she was younger, and Clarisse would lock her in the room they shared, before mother died and Clarisse took her room. This is worse. Not so sharp, the pain, but its constant, and Celes feels weaker every day.

There are easier ways, she knows, to stop her sister from selling her. She could find a man to sleep with, or even just start some rumours to that effect. But...Celes is made for something better. She was born for magic, and it was only her father's interference that stopped her from getting it. She won't sell herself to stop Clarisse's plan, and she won't sell herself for money either. She'll just...go hungry.

It takes a long time to save up enough. When she goes to buy the infusion, she wonders if the seller will see her gaunt face and decide to just rob her, kill her, push her in the river to lie beside her mother.

But he doesn't. No one cares about another street urchin getting her fix. Celes makes it home with her precious magic needle intact.

When she injects herself, she's so weak with hunger she nearly dies.

It's all worth it.

Because when the voices stop whispering their words of madness in her ears, and her throat recovers from all the screaming, she whispers a word of magic and soon there is _Ice_ forming in her fevered hands, sharp and deadly-looking things, and if she weren't so tired she would lift her arms and fling them at her mirror just to see if she could break the glass with her power. She wants to see the sharp edges fall, the powdery mirror-dust glisten, she wants Clarisse to come home and see what her sister has become.

Instead she relaxes and lets the ice fall, to melt on her bedsheets.

For a long time she lies there and breathes, just glad to be alive, glad to have known such a thing as magic. There is still a cold light gathered about her, so much brighter than _Cure_, and it turns her dingy little room into a fairyland of frost and snow.

The dealer who sold her the Magitek infusion told her not to expect much. A little wisp of cold, he said. Some ice cubes for your drink.

_You glowed like a goddamn streetlamp after they injected you_, Clarisse told her, when she was just a child, and Celes laughs and laughs as if she were indeed a child again.

-

When she's fourteen, Celes threatens to kill a man.

It starts when Clarisse brings home the dress.

The thing is white with blue ribbon and what seems like yards of lace trimming. Celes has never seen something so expensive in her house before. It looks completely out of place as Clarisse hangs it up on the aging wood of their mantle, where Father's picture watches placidly.

"In one week, I'm going to show you to the man who wants you," Clarisse says, "So try this on."

"No," Celes says. She doubts she'll be able to fit into it. She's been saving up for another infusion and practicing _Ice_, which means eating less and using up what little energy she has on her magic.

"You'll do what you're told. It's for your own good. Please, Celes," her sister implores, uncharacteristically. "It's taken me a long time to save up for this."

_I know how that feels. _Celes' stomach rumbles in sympathy. She looks at her sister's thin face, follows her tired gaze to the dress, and after a moment goes to the mantle to touch it. It's exquisite; she's never felt such soft fabric in her life. Her mother must have, though, before she was poor. Clarisse must have too.

_If Father had just given me away, maybe I could have had this all my life...and you too, sis._

"All right," says Celes, as Clarisse's eyes light up with faint pleasure.

But when she takes off her shabby frock and stands in only her underclothes, her sister gasps.

"When did you get so skinny?"

_Oh no. _"I've been stressed," Celes mumbles, "because I knew this day was coming."

"Well, you'll have to eat like crazy this week! How can you have let this happen? He won't want you if you look like this."

"Good," Celes says, suddenly angry. Clarisse has no idea what her sister has gone through, why she looks like this. "You know what? I don't want to try the dress on anymore."

"You have to." Clarisse's face is red.

"Why? Why do I have to go to this man?"

"Because there's no other future for you. We've been through this."

"Let me show you something," Celes says, and summons _Ice_.

Clarisse's eyes widen as her little sister hold eight icicles, each of them sharp as knives and as long as her arm, in the air above their heads. The air snaps crisp with cold; snow flutters against her cheeks, falls gently on the mantle, on the lace trimming of the hated dress.

There is no better feeling in all the world.

"Will he still want me if I show him this?" she wonders aloud.

"You little fool," Clarisse whispers. "What have you done? After Father died, after Mother died, after everything I've done for you. You...I've given everything for you."

"And I thank you for it," Celes replies, feeling like another person, someone from another world, with her power hanging above her sister's head. "I'll pay my debt to you one day. But not in the way you ask."

"It's not too late, Celes. You can hide this. It'll be okay f you don't show him your magic - "

"I was made for better things than a cage, Clarisse. I'll kill him if I have to."

Celes speaks in a voice like cold iron, and her sister flinches as if struck. Maybe Celes could have always sounded like this, if the Empire had taken her and made her their knight. Maybe her father had a voice like this when he told the Imperials he wouldn't give them his daughter.

_But I can still be a knight if I don't lose my pride._

"What will you do with your life then?" Clarisse asks, sounding bitter. "If you're going to throw away everything I've worked to give you."

Celes gently lowers her ice swords to the ground.

"I'll find my own way," she says, and it's a promise.

-

When she's fifteen, Celes saves a woman's life.

Her _Cure_ is stronger now, after another infusion, and even when she sees the cut to the throat, the blood pouring out in huge pools onto the street, even these things do not mean death if Celes can work fast enough, if she can pour all her magic into this old woman's small, frail body, if the blood will just stop -

She passes out.

When she awakens, she's in a strange bed, with warm lamplight and a fire roaring in the hearth. The woman - alive, apparently - sits next to her, asleep in a chair.

The blankets slide off Celes' legs as she moves off the bed, and she means to leave before the old one awakens. She doesn't want anyone to know about her magic.

But then she sees the faint scar where before there was a knife wound and thinks, with a spark of pride, _I did that_. And maybe...maybe she could get paid for it.

She taps the old lady on the shoulder.

"You're all right," the old voice croaks, with obvious relief. "You...have magic?"

Celes hesitates, then nods.

"We're seeing more and more of it, even among ordinary people," the old one muses. "Anyone doing Magitek cleanup can sell infusions on the side. And the river, downstream from the Magitek factory, seems to be full of the stuff."

"You won't tell anyone about me, right?" Celes says, harsher than she intends.

"Of course not," the woman bows her white head. "I owe you my life. I don't have much - I was robbed today, after all - but here, a token of my thanks."

Celes does not hesitate to take the bag of gil offered her.

"And..." the woman's voice trails off uncertainly, then hardens with resolve. "How do you feel about the Empire?"

"The Empire?" She usually does not hear her country referred to as such. On the radio it's usually _our great country_ or from time to time _the Ghestalian Empire_. And to ordinary people it's just "Vector."

"Do you hate the Empire?" the old woman presses.

Celes' breath stops for a moment at the audacity of the question. They could killed for this kind of talk. But the woman isn't afraid; she's watching Celes carefully.

So Celes considers the question. She doesn't think she hates the army. She is almost thankful to the soldiers who gave her her first dose of magic, when she was a baby, and made her what she is.

_But,_ her sister's voice seems to whisper, _they also took Father from us, and Mother too, and the future I should have had._

"You were raised in Vector, so you were taught to revere the Emperor," the woman says, seeing her confusion. "But you're from the Lower Quarters, aren't you? You must hate them too, for the indignities they've forced on you."

"I am a loyal citizen of Vector - " Celes begins, automatically, as if she is in school, but then she thinks about the word _indignities_, about nearly being sold to a stranger, about Clarisse selling herself every day; about her mother's stained hands and her lifeless body bobbing down the clouded blue river; about her father's long-ago death somewhere far away, with only a letter to inform his family when to start grieving.

"I never saw my father's face," she says without thinking. "My mother died hating me for...for where my magic came from."

The woman nods.

"If you want to use your abilities for good," she says, "there are people in this city working to help those who would see the Empire fall. Do you understand me?"

_She's a collaborator_, Celes realizes. _She's helping the Returners. _Celes could turn her in. She could make a fortune, give Clarisse the life she's always wanted. She could be a hero, maybe even the knight she's always wanted to be...if she's willing to play the traitor first.

Celes has so many debts to pay - to her sister, to her mother, to her father. But - she looks at the wrinkled, wary face before her - she doesn't think she wants to pay them like this. It would be a waste of the life she just saved. A waste of the magic she poured into that frail old body. A waste of the money and training, a lifetime of it, that she's poured into her magic.

Celes does not waste magic.

"Will I get paid?" she asks the old woman. "If I work for you?"

"No," she says, "but we support our own. We can find you other work. There's a clinic not far from here. You can use your magic to heal ordinary people. They're very discreet there." The woman's voice turns soft and sad. "My son was crushed by a machine in the factories. They took him to a clinic, but there was nothing to be done. If you'd been there..." She looks up. "But that's all in the past. What is your answer, child?"

When Celes gets home, Clarisse sees the blood on her dress and asks, "Where were you?"

Celes closes the door behind her, and replies, "Getting a job."

-

Celes is sixteen and content.

"So you're a pretty good healer, huh?" Clarisse says. "Better than a crazy ice warrior."

"Yeah. Though crazy ice warrior would've been fun. But I...like helping people." Celes says the last bit almost shyly. "But I'm making pretty good money. If this keeps up maybe you won't have to work in the brothel anymore - "

"I want to keep at it," Clarisse replies instantly, as if she already knew what Celes was going to say. "If I work two more years I can move up into management. Madame says I'm good at dealing with the customers and encouraging the girls."

"So you won't have to sleep with people anymore once you're a manager?"

"Not unless I want to."

"Then...I guess that's fine."

"I know you didn't like relying on me for everything," Clarisse says, voice serious. "Likewise, I don't want to rely on you for everything. What if something happens to you? I have to be able to support myself."

"You're right," replies Celes, and it's been a wonder, lately, how they agree so easily, how they actually understand each other. No yelling, no fights. Even the picture on the mantle seems to be smiling a little now.

Celes feels like she might be happy. She wonders how long it can last.

-

When she's seventeen, the war truly begins.

"You hear about Maranda?" Clarisse asks. "Burnt to the ground, they say."

_Magic,_ Celes knows. _But they are using it to kill, not heal. _Two years ago she would not have cared about the difference. Now she hates them for doing this to her beloved magic.

Tzen falls soon after Maranda. Albrook fell long ago. The ships stop sailing north, except to carry troops and Magitek armour to other places, other towns and cities to conquer.

Celes and her sister attend the mandatory rallies, listen to the Emperor's voice exalting his victories and ensuring more to come. Sometimes she catches a glimpse of the great generals, Leo and Kefka and Farlan, standing behind the emperor with their watchful eyes, troupes of Magitek knights at their command. Once she would have felt envy seeing those white cloaks and shining swords, but now she only feels a dull anger. _How can those cloaks stay so white? The air in the Upper Quarters must be so clean._

And at one rally...Celes squints and sees something even stranger than white cloaks in foul Vector air.

Behind Kefka is a a white face, blank-eyed and delicate, framed by a shock of green hair - a girl, who can't be much older than Celes herself. Younger, perhaps. She stands there, without apparent rank or purpose, as out of place as Celes would be if she climbed the stage and took a place behind Kefka herself.

_Who is that?_ she wonders.

-

Celes is eighteen when she meets _them_.

One is a Doman knight, his manner of speech and dress so strange that Celes wonders how he could have possibly snuck into the city undetected. One is Figaran, sun-burned and with too many muscles to be the prince he claims to be. And the third, as if to punctuate the strangeness of the first two, is a simple thief, or "treasure hunter," as he claims, his accent suspiciously unplaceable.

They're a band of misfits if she's ever seen one. Yet her contacts have confirmed that these men are Returners, that she can trust them. And...they have a certain look in their eyes that speaks to her, more than their words do. Maybe it's because she's hardly ever met someone from outside Vector before, but she sees a spark in them, a reckless courage that shouldn't seem possible in a city, a world as grey as this one.

The fools are planning to infiltrate the Magitek factory.

"Our friend is hurt, and we need something magical to help her," the thief explains. "We think we can find it in the factory."

"What is it?" Celes asks.

They look at each other, obviously wondering if they can trust her.

"My parents were killed by the Empire," she tells them, without thinking. "Even though I didn't love them - my mother hated me, and I didn't even know my father - but they were still my parents."

It's the Figaran prince who softens at her sob story. He nods at the others and they tell her about their leader Banon, about a girl named Terra, about the Espers they intend to rescue. And they show her their magic, weak as it is, and as she sees the lights dancing in their hands she feels, for the first time, that she has met those kindred to her spirit.

"I want to go with you," she tells them. "I can help you get into the Magitek factory. The dealer who sold me my Magitek infusions knows a back way in, I'm sure of it. I'll take you to him."

"That's great!" Sabin says, eyes bright with genuine gratitude. "We can definitely use your help. We should go tonight. The sooner the better."

"But..." Celes feels her heart beat with sudden excitement, or fear, she's not sure which. "I need to say goodbye to someone first. I'll come back right after."

"We'll escort you there," the thief offers. He's probably suspicious of her motives - thinks she'll report them as soon as she walks out the door.

Celes' voice hardens. "No," she says abruptly, and Locke's eyebrows raise in faint surprise. "It's not that I don't appreciate it. It's just...I know these streets. I would like to go by myself. I need to say goodbye to the city too." And she realizes that it's true, that after this she might not live to see the morning, and even if she survives she'll have to flee.

_If it's goodbye to Vector, I can handle it. But...Clarisse..._

"It's dangerous at night," the thief objects, when she doesn't continue. "We were robbed our first night here."

"Ironically," Sabin snickers, "Mr. Treasure Hunter."

"Says the man who was holding our money pouch."

"Let her go," says the Doman unexpectedly. He has been brooding in his corner, hand on his sword, eyes dark and sombre. His hair is shot with grey; but he has a warrior's bearing, even she can see that. "She should see her loved ones before our mission. One does not know when - " He seems to choke on something in his throat, then recovers his poise. "Besides, she will not perish by some ignoble dagger in the dark. She has a warrior's spirit, and is much more skilled at magic than you, Locke."

"Yeah, yeah."

_A true knight_, Celes thinks, _sees courage in others, not only in himself. _She thinks General Leo might have said it once, in one of his more self-deprecating speeches. She looks to the Doman, and promises, "I'll be back soon."

The Doman nods his head, and Celes wonders if he might one day teach her to use a sword, if they survive this night.

The door of the safehouse shuts behind her. The night is warm, but Celes shivers, knowing what she is about to do. _I must be crazy_, she thinks._ Clarisse will think I'm crazy. She won't let me go._

But when Celes returns home and tries to explain, haltingly, why this is so important, why the risks are all worth it, Clarisse cuts her off with a resigned look. "If you're going to go, go."

"I don't want to leave you - "

Clarisse's sad smile stops her words. "Once I saw you throwing that ice magic around like you…were born to do it, I knew I couldn't keep you. I think ever since you were injected as a baby, you've been destined for this."

"No," Celes answers uneasily. "I chose this. I could have been what you wanted me to be, could have had an easy life. But I was too stubborn. I never said this before, but...I'm sorry, Clarisse. I could never pay back my debts to you, to our parents."

"It's not about debts. Don't you get it, stupid?" Clarisse's eyes are suspiciously wet. "You're my little sister."

That's all it takes for Celes' nerves to break.

"And you're my big sister," she says, suddenly crying. "The best I could have had." She feels Clarisse's arms wrap around her, and that just makes the tears come even harder. "I'm scared, sis. Should I do this?"

Clarisse kisses her on the head, like Celes is five again. "If you don't I'll kill you."

"I might not come back for a long time."

"I know."

"But I'll come back. I promise."

"Don't," Clarisse tells her. "It's your life. Be brave with it."

"I'll try. For you." And though it aches ever so, Celes feels her heart swell with fear and love and above all courage, for her sister is a true knight through and through, no matter that it's taken a long time for her to get here.

_Me too. I'll get there someday too._

"That's right." Clarisse pushes her toward the door. "Now get out of here. Before you chicken out, you little shit."

Celes laughs through her tears, and goes.

\- End -


End file.
